The Butterfly Joint

Specialties

The Butterfly Joint is a woodworking and design studio for children ages 18 months and up (and adult classes are offered as well!).

When students walk through the doors of the Butterfly Joint, they are transported into a woodworking studio designed just for them. They clock in with their very own punch cards, put on their work aprons, and get started on their projects after hearing the sound of the steam whistle.

The Butterfly Joint focuses on teaching children traditional joinery techniques — the use of dovetails, box joints and loose tenons in place of screws and nails.

Toddlers (ages 18 months to 3) and beginners (ages 4 – 7) work with prefabricated and unassembled wood items to sand, assemble and oil. Advanced students (ages 8 – 12) create projects from scratch and use hand tools such as Japanese dovetail saws, chisels and hammers.

The Butterfly Joint also has a retail component, both in-​store and online, offering take-​home projects, completed pieces perfect for gifting and specialty items such as child-​sized aprons, work gloves and age-​appropriate tools.

History

Established in 2015.

Lead by Danny Montoya, a credentialed early-​childhood educator with more 15 years of experience in the classroom, The Butterfly Joint came to fruition through a successful three-​month crowdfunding campaign. The campaign ended February 2, 2015 and the doors of The Butterfly Joint were opened on Father’s Day, June 21, 2015.

Meet the Business Owner

Danny M.

Business Owner

Danny has been working in schools in San Francisco since 1997. He studied early childhood education and received his California multiple-​subject teaching credential in 2000. For the next 12 years, Danny taught kindergarten and first grade at some of San Francisco’s top independent schools. During vacations and off hours, Danny spent much of his time in his wood shop designing and creating pieces for his home and gifts for friends. Before long, Danny was being commissioned for larger pieces, selling some items in stores and doing custom work for local interior designers. In 2012, he decided to leave teaching and pursue his woodworking business full time. A year later, Danny’s daughter was born, and he was inspired to combine his two passions: teaching and woodworking.